


two parts quiet (one part desperation)

by lesblep



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Adopted Children, Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, College of Winterhold - Freeform, Dark Brotherhood - Freeform, Dawnguard, F/F, Found Family, Height Differences, Magical Realism, Marriage, Orcs, Organized Crime, Political Intrigue, Prophecy, Slow Burn, Solstheim, Thieves Guild, Tragedy/Comedy, Trans Female Character, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 18:31:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18504649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesblep/pseuds/lesblep
Summary: She kisses Serana, and even just a taste is like stepping into frost after being made of flame your whole life. Hands, crisp in their chill, cup her jaw, fingertips reaching into the close-cut bits of her hair. They ebb and flow, a shoreline of lip against tongue, and when the vampire lets slip an unnecessary gasp, she swallows it just fine. They break apart in awe. “Hello,” Ghorakh says eloquently.Serana snorts a laugh, buries her face in her hands. “Hi,” she replies, soft, and the distance between them thins again until they are scrambling to hold each other to the point that they trip into the dirt. There they sit, two fully grown women giggling with their foreheads pressed together, legs tangled.*Two love stories for the price of one, spanning time, space, misunderstandings and near-death experiences. Or, four heroes of destiny completely avoid all semblance of responsibility, and somehow end up saving the world anyway.





	two parts quiet (one part desperation)

**Author's Note:**

> Dramatis Personae:
> 
> GHORAKH GRA-KHAZGUR as The Last Dragonborn but mostly A Gay Mess  
> LADY SERANA OF THE VOLKIHAR as a Terrible College Professor  
> LLETHE "SILVERTONGUE" TELVANNI as a Glorified Mailman  
> and  
> SAPPHIRE MALLORY as the Voice of Reason

Their first meeting goes like this: an elf, dripping ash and wearing the oddest armour Sapphire's ever seen, stumbles through the gate of Falkreath, shows a guard something in her hands when he confronts her. He listens when she talks, answers her questions more politely than he's probably ever in his life.

 

Then he points out Sapphire, who is wearing her least conspicuous clothing, and jumpy as always, grabs for her dagger. She's on a contract, someone abandoned the Brotherhood for a simpler life which Could Not Be Forgiven, according to Astrid. Sapphire doesn't really give a shit why. She's freshly nineteen, out of her pig farm, itching to take back her body again and again with the very same knife she did the first time, and assassination pays well.

 

The elf is wrapped in so much fabric she can't tell how old she is, but her voice is calm and syrupy enough Sapphire almost feels at ease. “This is for you,” she says, words muted from the scarf she's commandeered as a dust-rag. “Direct message from Solstheim.”

 

“You don't look much like a courier,” she quips. “Who's it from?”

 

“It's all explained in the letter,” says the owner of the saddest eyes she's ever seen. “It's important. Please.”

 

She takes it. And when Sapphire Mallory, orphan-no-more, looks up, eyes sharp with confusion, the elf is gone.

 

She talked to Astrid who talked to Uncle Delvin who talked to Mercer Frey, and now she's met her father face to face exactly twice. They have a long way to go before she can call him dad, but it's nice to have a new contact off the mainland. It's even nicer to be part of the Thieves’ Guild, to leave her knife sheathed for days at a time.

 

Anyway. (If this were verbal, there'd be an uncomfortable cough of a transition.)

 

Sapphire is scamming Shadr, again, because it's fuckin’ hilarious to see him scramble to blame someone else. If he was smart, he wouldn't have ever approached her. She leaves, hangs around the Bee and Barb waiting for Brynjolf to finish his scam of today. Then, dripping ash and five years more confidence, comes the same elf that changed her before.

 

“You should let his debt go,” says the not-quite-girl, tugs her scarf down, skin slate and eyes purple. “I'll pay for him if it's necessary, but you've got better things to do than threaten stable boys for a hundred gold.”

 

What if I don't, Sapphire thinks, and then the elf's eyes squint grimacing as if she can hear it. “Alright. I guess I made enough. Tell him he doesn't owe me anything,” and before she stops talking, the elf is gone again. What the fuck, she doesn't say. Am I just haunted by a silvertongued courier now?

 

She is, apparently, because an hour later the elf sweeps into the Guild while attempting valiantly to shove an entire sweetroll in her mouth, snorts when Vipir tries to make her flinch. She makes a beeline for the bar, holds out a hand, calloused and grey and sticky from icing, and Sapphire likes her even more. “I'm Llethe,” she says like it's supposed to mean something. “I'm new.” She's tugged down both her scarf and her hood, both of which are leather-black and still covered in dust. She has a nasty pair of scars along the left side of her jaw which trail up into the fine black of her buzzcut. Sapphire wonders, fleetingly, why.

 

“I know,” she replies, because thieves talk, stupid. That's how it works, you have to communicate or you're just a squad of scrappy roommates who never make eye contact except when you're fighting over coin.

 

“You and Vex and Tonilia are the only other women in the guild,” Llethe says. “I wanna stick with you. Be able to trust someone here, and in my experience it's the women.”

 

She's obviously got a plan of some sort. Sapphire shakes. “Good to have you, silvertongue,” she says. “Don't think I'll forgive you too soon for talking me out of stealing from stable boy.”

 

“His name is Shadr,” she frowns, licking her fingers. “Names are important.”

 

“Not when they belong to men,” Sapphire says firmly, and that's the end of their third conversation.

 

The next time they see each other, silvertongue's handing roughly three hundred septims over to Brynjolf. He pats her on the back, tells her to go get her new armour from Tonilia, and it doesn't escape Sapphire that the other woman shrinks when he touches her. She follows Llethe into the Flagon, makes herself known by moving into her field of vision before she starts talking. “What was the job?” 

 

“Shopkeepers,” she replies. “I paid their debts.”

 

To say Sapphire is surprised is like saying the current emperor is gonna get assassinated.  It's true, of course, but it's not the whole story. “Why?”

 

“The Grey Fox didn't take from the poor,” she says, “and I didn't join this guild to be cruel.” Sapphire stands there for a moment, stunned, and when she blinks the Dunmer's gone. Shit.

 

“It looks good on you,” Sapphire nudges her with one elbow when they see each other again, roughly a week and four jobs later. “Really. You look confident.” They're sitting on the edge of the cistern, feet skimming the water.

 

Llethe turns a funky shade of scarlet-purple. “Thanks,” she says, silvertongue stilled, “I think I'm gonna miss my chitin, though.” She tugs at the tanned hide on one bicep.

 

“Is that what that nightmare was?” Sapphire chirps, “You looked like a fabric atronach.”

 

Llethe snorts laughing, and the next thing she knows they've fallen into the cistern together, several inches of water lapping uncomfortable at their hips. They stare at each other, grinning, and when Rune looks over to question whatever-the-fuck they're doing, Sapphire flips him off with a splash.

 

After that, they're closer. Run a few jobs, always scrambling to finish first, and make a game out of it- whoever brings in the most gold gets to buy the drinks. Llethe comes home one day wearing a linen cape with Riften's seal on it, and Sapphire makes fun of her for being a thief and somehow the Thane at the same time.

 

“The Guild is my first priority,” she says, “being the Thane just means I get to live inside the walls.”

 

Sapphire says right back, “okay, my lady, anything for you!” And gets punched in the shoulder for her trouble.

 

(Turns out, she wasn't bluffing. Llethe really does want to carve herself a place in the guild, in the world, says all the right things to all the right people, and before the year is up she's made herself a tidy little sum. She gives most of it away, because of course she fuckin’ does.)

 

She likes numbers jobs. Don't ask why Sapphire remembered that, she doesn't know either, but whenever Llethe gets back, she captures the room. She's cheerful for a thief, throws herself halfway across the cistern to talk to Niruin about the bow she stole on her last trip out and whether or not he can restring and resell it because Mora knows she's not doing that. That's what she says, anyway. Sapphire isn't sure if Llethe legitimately can't restring bows or she just likes making other people do things for her. She's always in and out, always tossing the gemstones she finds from hand to hand, always moving.

 

“Silvertongue,” Sapphire says finally. The idiot's broken a wrist jumping off a roof, and she's still on her way out. She's sick of her guildmate- her friend- never sleeping at home. “Don't leave yet.”

 

She stops with her good hand on the ladder. “Hm?”

 

“Have a drink. I'll bully Vekel into pouring it free.”

 

She beams. “C'mon, then!” Llethe yanks Sapphire through the door to the Flagon, pushes her onto a stool. “What'd you do today?” She asks. “Or,” a theatrical gasp, “who?” Her eyebrows dance across her face.

 

Sapphire is startled into laughing. “I ran a heist for Vex today,” she says. “Like hell am I risking getting laid while on a job for her.” Vekel slides a pair of tankards in front of them, holds out a hand for gold. She grins at him. “Put it on Vipir's tab.”

 

“You're gonna have to pay for your drinks with your own coin eventually,” he says, but he walks away. She leans back. Props her feet up on the table. Vekel's gonna kick her ass later, but for now it looks damn cool.

 

“Well,” Llethe flaps her hand around to emphasise her words, “what did you do?”

 

“Alright, fine. You got me.” Sapphire launches into the story of today, talks about how one of their clients wanted his daughter broken out of jail. “Had to spend half my last haul on bribing the guards. I'm not good with words like you are, bet you'd finish the job and be back before last call. And then you'd be gone again.”

 

The other thief looks oddly chastised. “I'm sorry.”

 

“You're never here.”

 

“I know. I can't-” an awkward shudder of a breath, a gulp of watered-down mead. Sapphire could've sworn she asked for the good stuff. “I can't really explain it. I guess I'm not used to having people to come back to.”

 

Sapphire starts to prickle. “Why’re you telling me this?”

 

“Because you get it,” Llethe says. “I think you're the only one who does.”

 

A beat. 

 

“You don't know anything about me,” Sapphire hisses, stands up and kicks her chair in. “Vekel,” she calls, feels ice crawl back to her veins. “Let silvertongue here pay for her own drink.” 

 

“Wait! Wait, oh gods,” the Dunmer whispers. She grabs weakly at Sapphire, who snatches her hand away, holds it close to her chest. “One job. Run one more job with me, and if I fuck it up we don't ever have to talk again. But if it's good- if it goes well, I'll stick around. I'll tell you everything.”

 

“What makes you think I give a shit about your sob story?"

 

“Because I give a shit about yours? What the fuck, Saph’, we’re supposed to be friends.” Llethe stands up too, drops a frustrated handful of coin on the table. “One more job.” She holds out a hand again. Begging. This bitch changed her life and didn't even have the good grace to never come back.

 

“Fine,” Sapphire spits. She takes it. “What's the job?”

  
“Helgen.”   


**Author's Note:**

> lesblep.tumblr.com  
> twitter.com/kit_lesblep


End file.
